The Red Pumps by Katifenia Zafiriadou

Title of the original: Τα κόκκινα γοβάκια

Tucked away in a brown closet, which gave off a slight mildewed odor and was scribbled in blue ink with old messages such as Aris, I love you, Nico, on its walls, the red pumps size nine were waiting to be worn.

In an old apartment, where lovemaking gasps and sighs from the neighbors can be heard accompanied by the gurgle of the drainage and the yells of rows, a hand opens the closet leaf and takes out the red pumps. It is the hand of a woman who has begun to feel the tear and wear of time: incipient wrinkles, cellulitis, overweight, hair dyed blond in an attempt of rejuvenation. She is wearing jeans and a tight little outfit over it in order to make her succulent bosom appear even larger.

She gets hold of her pumps, puts them on her feet, the toe-nails painted deep pink, and stands in front of the mirror starting her daily ritual of putting on cheap cosmetics: first the powder, then the intense rouge, green eye-shade, mascara and plenty eyeliner for an intense look and finally lipstick. The pumps seem to watch her putting on slowly her make up.

She opens the front door and crosses the corridor to get out into the street. The street is where in summer your clothes stick to your sweated body, the neighbors hang around to breathe some fresh air and watch the passers-by – their only diversion as the joys of the sea is a luxury to them.

She goes and sits down on a bench munching sunflower seeds, shuffles around her feet in her red pumps looking forward to something interesting. She makes out the indistinct figure of a young man. He approaches her. They cross their looks. His is intense, scorching her. She starts up. Is he going to stay? The young man catches her eye and stares back seductively in all his carnal arrogance. He passes by indifferently and stands further on. He slowly circles around her like a flying moth around a source of light. The woman gets excited. Will he do something? She is unable to express her feelings; one of her pumps remains stuck in the dirt with its front pointed at him. The young man gets nearer. He sits next to her. Her breathing grows faster and there is a knot in her stomach. The red pumps sense the blood flowing faster in the veins of her toes and they feel her pulse in the vein of her ankle. The two exchange scrutinizing glances which lock playfully for a moment in an unexpected promise. Then like two frightened birds they quickly turn their eyes elsewhere, but they meet again. They timidly pause. The words are stuck in their throats like a baby to be presently born. What if? … The first word leaps out and the man in all readiness catches it in the air like a relay and hands it back. Then an inchoate dialogue follows resembling a wobbling stilts-walker vulnerable to a false step. And this dialogue is slowly built up around them like a spider web and then goes on constructively. The atmosphere is sensually charged. They presently find an excuse and they go up to her house.

They go up the stairs one by one in a delay of expectation. Tock – tock – tock the pumps sound on the cheap mosaic. Every knock becomes a touch, a palpitating feel of the heart. Then their intercourse is rhythmic; slow at the beginning but swift and violent afterwards. Their bodies match despite their incongruity. Gasps of pleasure are heard; a bite on the neck is felt with a sound that penetrates the deserted walls.

The pumps, upside down in a corner, are their silent witnesses.

The act is over. The young man must leave. The woman puts on the pumps hurriedly and with a heavy heart sees the young man out. “Will you come again?” The same happens the next day and the day after, but after some time the young man never shows up again.

In vain do the pumps look forward to him on the street bench. They eagerly walk up and down on the sidewalk, looking left and right. The woman has worn them for days. Then they are left at the bedside during her short slumber. They feel the edge of her bed sheet and taste of her agonizing dreams.

When she finally gives up hope of seeing him again, the woman tosses the pumps in a corner and begins to wail and sob for her bereavement that makes her thoughtlessly seek warmth in someone’s embrace; for her loneliness that beguiles her to the vicious circle of transient pleasure; for the plunder of both body and soul; for the rejection; for the loss of that relationship which eventually comes from the mellowing of the bodies, the ripping off of pain and separation. She must endure her poignant tears and sobbing all alone tonight silently choking her screams: “Hey, you who are comfortably placed in life ready to pelt me with stones. Do you perhaps know what lies behind my misshapen flesh?”

She stands up and looks at her weary face in the mirror. Her hair has begun to turn white at the roots. Her wrinkles show deeper. She goes to the wardrobe, opens one leaf and inspects its contents. Then she starts silently to doff her clothes and hang them slowly on plastic hangers.

The red pumps have been left discarded in a corner of the room gathering dust.

Katifenia Zafiriadou was born in Thessloniki in 1969. She is a graduate of English Language and Literature from the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki. She has also a post graduate degree in Linguistics from the same University. Her works have been published by different magazines. Her brochure The Matchbox has been published in 2005 and Greek Desert Flowers in 2008 by Loxias Edition.